Treason in the 2020 Presdential Election – a Moot Court Trial

by Mary W Maxwell, LLB

A moot court allows anyone to hold a fictional trial. The case may be completely made up, or it may be a re-run – a second take – of a real case that occurred in history. Moot court trials are often sponsored by law schools as an extra-curricular activity, like a sport, with inter-collegiate competitions, and trophies awarded.

The following is a moot court trial of the fictitious type. Actually, it’s merely an Opening Statement by the Prosecution. The defendant is accused of treason for something she did on November 3, 2020. The “pretend date” of the trial is January 4, 2021. Of course, an indictment, arrest, and trial of a person could never happen so quickly.

Or could it?

Moot Court Trial
Trial of Denise LaRue, accused of treason for interfering in the November 3, 220 US presidential election

New Hampshire State Prosecutor: Graham Granite

Defendant’s Attorney: Iris Vendetta

Opening Statement by the Prosecution, January 4, 2021:

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, it will not take you long to find Dense LaRue guilty of treason. I will show you how she conspired, beginning in March 2017, with persons A, B, and C, in Sierra Leone, to electronically flip votes that were cast at polling booths in three key states.

On November 3, 2020, she flipped 12 million votes that were actually cast for candidate Joe Biden, into votes for candidate Donald Trump, the sitting US president. Ms LaRue did this at 11pm (E.S.T.), after the polls had officially closed.

Her flipping caused the election in three key states to be declared a victory for Trump when it should have been for Biden. Those key states are: New Jersey, Illinois, and New Hampshire – together they have 38 electors.

[Reminder: This is a fictitious moot court trial.]

As a result, the final national tally of votes for Biden, which would have been 270 – making him win the presidency -- were reduced to 232. Biden was cheated of the White House. Americans who voted for him feel cheated.

But this case is not about electoral politics or about disappointments. It is about treason.

Ms LaRue betrayed her nation in order to advance the interests of a foreign country, Sierra Leone. Perhaps Sierra Leone had reasons for wanting Trump to say in office for another four years, but you do not need to be informed of what those reasons are. Sierra Leone is not on trial here.

The accused, Denise LaRue, was born in Burlington VT in 1970. Her surname at birth was Smudge; she later had it changed to LaRue, by deed poll, in a New York court, when she was 21 years old. She now lives in Manchester, NH. State police arrested her at her home on Christmas Eve, 2020.

Treason

Jurors, you have heard me say that Ms LaRue betrayed her nation. Treason is a federal crime – it is expressly stated in Article III, section 3, of the US Constitution. But under common law it also constitutes a crime within New Hampshire law. All States of the United Sates have common law (Louisiana also has the Napoleonic code known as civil law).

The choosing of this jurisdiction for today’s case had something to do with practicality. President Trump is in charge of federal prosecutions, via his Department of Justice. I am not here to accuse Trump of any crime. As far as we are aware, he did not participate in, and may have been unaware of, Denise LaRue’s treacherous actions on November 3, 2020.

However, on a practical basis, it does seem unlikely that the Trump administration, beginning January 20, 2021, will look into the matter of electoral fraud in the 2020 election. This is rather sad, as Article II, section 3 of the
parchment says, solemnly, of all presidents: “He shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, you may have cogitated on the possibility that a conviction of Ms LaRue for treason could subsequently bring about a change of government, that is, that the 2020 election would be undone. Who knows what could happen? But I ask you to eschew such cogitation.

You are here to determine guilt on only one criminal matter -- Ms LaRue’s treason. I will be telling you only about that, not about any contingent matters. Even if her defense attorney waxes patriotic about the need to consider contingences or sequelae – even if the very case before you in this courtroom could lead to some nation raining bombs down on America -- I say it is your duty to not “go there.”

Treason is a very serious crime. The US Constitution declares that the punishment for treason can be set by Congress and Congress has set it as death. In New Hampshire, there is no death penalty. But a conviction for treason can result in life imprisonment.

At the federal level there has traditionally been a reluctance to charge anyone with the crime of treason. In two well-known cases, that of Navy man John Walker and that of CIA agent Aldrich Ames, convictions were brought not under treason but under espionage.

Walker had passed classified documents to the Soviets, our main enemy during the Cold War. Ames had gone much further, volunteering in 1985 to help the KGB. His crimes caused the deaths (by execution in the USSR) of men he had identified to the KGB as having helped the CIA. Ames received $1.8 million in pay for his treachery. At trial in 1993 he got a life sentence, for espionage.

We, in New Hampshire, the Live Free Or Die state, must take seriously our duty to guard the country and the state. Never mind if there has been a reluctance in the past to charge traitors with the appropriate crime. Our duty today is our duty today.

And it’s our duty for the future, you might say, insofar as punishment for crime has the effect of educating the young about law. A failure to recognize treason and to charge the traitor has the effect of saying “Ho Hum, you can go help a foreign government hurt the US if you want. Who cares?”

The Prosecution’s Case

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, as the state’s prosecutor, I must preview, for you, the evidence we will be using – the witnesses, the material exhibits shown on this table to your right, and two crucial affidavits. I will also give you some insight into the development of the law of treason, as many Americans know little about it.

Ms LaRue, a Trump supporter, was friendly with two persons in the United States during the 2008 election, who were on the Obama team, one of whom will be a prosecution witness, Jay Dimdim. He had been on the campaign team to elect Hillary Clinton, but she lost the Democrat Party primary to Barack Obama.

Mr Dimdim was already a skilled amateur hacker of computers. His buddy, Joe, figured out how to flip votes. Joe told Mrs Clinton he could assure her a win in the 2008 primary. Surprisingly she said No, “as the master plan was for Obama to win in 2008 and for me to win in 2016.”

In 2020 the Defendant happened to meet up again with Mr Dimdim. She asked him if he thought Joe would be willing to sell his vote-hacking technique. He said “Probably.” At that point she was working in the Trump White House as an aide.

By the spring of 2020, Ms LaRue knew that Trump might be deprived of a second term as president, thanks to the increasing popularity of Rep Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who was running for the Democrats’ primary nomination.

After a Republican dinner party in Washington that was attended by some African diplomats, including Mrs Rara from Sierra Leone, Ms LaRue became friends with Mrs Rara.

Soon thereafter, Gabbard lost her bid as a White House hopeful, as Joe Biden secured the nomination. The Defendant then called upon Joe, in September, and told him that “a lady” – she did not say the name Rara – wanted to meet him.

I will save the details for tomorrow, Jurors, but in the end Ms LaRue and Mrs Rara hatched a plan to steal the 2020 election for Trump. By October it was clear that three states -- Illinois, New Jersey, and New Hampshire -- would make or break a second term for the president. The Defendant did all that was necessary to make the 2020 election come out right – that is, right according to the wishes of Sierra Leone: Trump won.

What Is Treason?

The decision was made by the Attorney General of New Hampshire to send the LaRue matter to our state’s grand jury. They presented a True Bill, and Ms LaRue was arrested. The crime charged is treason against the state of New Hampshire and treason against the nation, as well as conspiracy to commit treason. You may find the Defendant guilty on any, or all three, of those charges.

The state of Montana has arrested “Joe,” the hacker, and charged hm with the crime of hacking and fraud.

Ms LaRue did more than hack or commit fraud. She treasonously worked with a foreign power to undermine our republic. Thanks to her, Trump is holding office against the will of the American people. Her sin is disloyalty.

Everyone who belongs to a nation has an obligation of loyalty to it. When a person acts, instead, out of loyalty to another entity, the people get enraged.

That is even true of a smaller group than a nation or state. Members of a trade union would be appalled if one of their own does something to harm them. And, as everyone knows, actions of disloyalty against one’s own family are constrained by a very strong emotion.

A traitor to the nation stoops even lower. He makes life dangerous for all. No country would fail to punish a soldier who, in battle, sneaks over to the enemy side and reveals to them a planned ambush. His superiors, or his equals, would instinctively kill him.

A law forbidding treason is thus more an edict of Nature than a legal matter. However, kings unsurprisingly recognized the danger they were in, from upstarts who would like to overthrow them, and so the first laws against treason had to do with the protection of the sovereign. In Australia, it was not until the 21st century that the law against treasonous harming of the monarch was extended to include the prime minister.

Yet as early as 1656 we can see from the laws of New Haven Colony in America – written in England – that the harm involved in acts of treason could be against the people: quote:

“If any person shall conspire, and attempt any invasion, insurrection, or publick Rebillion against this Jurisdiction, or shall endeavour to surprize, or seize any Plantation, or Town, any Fortification, Platform, or any great Guns provided for the defence of the Jurisdiction, ... or shall treacherously and perfidiously attempt the alteration and subversion of the frame of policy, or fundamentall Government laid, and settled for this Jurisdiction, he or they shall be put to death.” (Hurst 69-70)

The first conviction for treason under the Constitution happened during President George Washington’s administration. Some farmers who were making whiskey shot at officials who came to collect the tax on the whiskey. As you can imagine, it would soon end in anarchy if people shot at the enforcers of law, whose protection we all need.

The Founding Fathers put into the Constitution a definition of treason so that it could not later be changed at someone’s whim. Article III, section 3 – I like to call it “three-three” – holds that

“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”

Of course, the greatest rebellion we have had since the founding of the United States was the civil war. A very large number of rebels in the Confederacy were convicted of treason by military tribunal. Later, President Andrew Johnson pardoned those rebels, in 1868.

Ladies and Gentlemen, rebellion is the kind of treason of which we accuse Ms LaRue. She attempted to rebel against the functioning of the Electoral College, by flipping votes – all for the benefit of a foreign nation, Sierra Leone. She boldly overrode the Constitution.

Allow me to make one more point that I hope will influence your thinking on treason during this important trial. It is about the tragedy of loss of normal society. This occurred in France, in the early 1800s, owing to Napoleon’s dictatorship. Sir Walter Scott accused Napoleon of parricide – death of a parent. Our nation is something like a parent to us. If we in the United States were to lose our Constitution, we would be very, very unprotected. Walter Scott wrote:

“To plunder the nation of their privileges as freeborn men was the act of a parricide. The nation lost under Napoleon’s successive encroachments, what liberty the ancient government had left them, and all those rights, which had been acquired by the Revolution.

Surely, I suggest, Napoleon was thereby a traitor to his country.

Finally, O Jurors, before you listen to the Defense’s Opening Statement, as to Ms LaRue’s innocence, I point to the material on this table. It includes an example of the offending voting machines – this one was seized overseas.

It includes photos of meetings of some of the players. Here also is a deposition of Joe that was taken in a Montana jail. Here are 400 pages of detail as to the flipped votes in three states.

Keep in mind the huge responsibility you are carrying for our nation and for the state of New Hampshire.

Thank you.

-- Mary Maxwell is the author of Prosecution for Treason (2011) and Grass Court; How To Use Law To Deal with the Pandemic (2020). Her website is ConstitutionAndTruth.com. Mary writes weekly for Gumshoe.News.com, which is based in Melbourne, Australia